444 -1 WHAT GRIEVES THE HOLY SPIRIT?September 17, 1978
Henry F. Kulp
Ephesians 4: 25 - 32 Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.
The Book of Ephesians is a marvelous book. It tells us of our glorious position in Jesus Christ.
1/ Ephesians 1: 6, 7 To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;
Here we are acceptable in the beloved, the Lord Jesus Christ, and in Him we have redemption, and his forgiveness of sins.
2/ As I was thinking about these two verses here as we start this message, my mind automatically goes back to Isaiah 1: 18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
Did you ever wonder why God didn’t say, though your sins be as black or blue or some other color? Why did He say crimson? Red, like crimson. What is the reason for it?
First of all, I believe in the verbal inspiration of the Bible. Certainly Isaiah didn’t know what he was talking about, but God does.
3/ Crimson cannot be bleached. Cleaners and dyers have no acid or chemical that can bleach crimson or blot it out. As you know, paper is made of old rags—these old rags are sorted, all colors being placed in one pile, but not so with red. They are put into another pile, for they cannot be bleached for used in making white or light colored paper. Red rags are used to make red ink blotters—even though your sins be as red they cannot be dyed, they cannot be bleached, they cannot be washed away. How are they taken care of then?—by the blood of Christ. So when a man is washed in the blood of Christ he is cleansed from every sin and he should walk worthy of this position.
4/ But as we see this marvelous position we have in Jesus Christ, we come to a very important verse.
Ephesians 4: 30 And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.
The Greek says, AND STOP GRIEVING THE SPIRIT, THE HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD.
5/ The Holy Spirit here is seen as capable of feeling and so it is personal. He is a Person. You can only grieve a Person. So the Holy Spirit is capable of feelings.
6/ Isaiah 63: 10 But they rebelled, and vexed his Holy Spirit: therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them.
Here we read, but they, Israel rebelled and vexed, that is grieved, His Holy Spirit, therefore He was turned to be their enemy and He fought against them.
7/ Ephesians 4: 30 And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.
The word, grieved in the Greek, LEW-PET-O, TO CAUSE SORROW, TO CAUSE DISTRESS.
This gives us a very hard situation. We know that the Holy Spirit has a perfect inner happiness. He has always been perfectly happy, and He always will be perfectly happy. How can we say then that He has sorrow or distress?
8/ No doubt that this is an Anthropopathic (An-Throw-poe-path-ic). It is a term which means that God is represented, or the conception of God with a human form with human attributes, and it is used to describe the condition of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. It actually means the Holy Spirit is not controlling the believer. Remember, God is always happy—there is never a time when He isn’t happy, and there will never be a time that He won’t be happy—this is also true of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Nothing can shake any member of the Godhead. There is no traumatic experience that can cause them to fall apart. But here we are describing God in the terms of man.
9/ There is a principle here in Ephesians 4: 30 we need to see. You can hurt someone else until first of all you hurt the Holy Spirit, for He is living in your body—your body is His dwelling place. When a believer gets out of the will of God, he does that by grieving or going through the Holy Spirit, refusing to be under His control, so I want you to realize that every sin is against the Holy Spirit and it grieves Him.
10/ Let us look at the commands concerning the Holy Spirit in the New Testament.
Matthew 12: 31, 32 Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.
Here we read about the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, or speaking a word against the Holy Spirit. And this is a sin that was committed by the Nation Israel in the Book of Acts when they rejected the Word of the Holy Spirit concerning Jesus Christ being their crucified, buried, resurrected Saviour.
11/ Acts 7: 51 Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.
Here we have Stephen talking before the Sanhedrin, and he tells them, “Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Spirit, as your fathers did, so do ye.”
And here they were, committing the sin, the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit by stoning Stephen and sending him back to Heaven, with the words, “We will not have this man, Jesus Christ, to rule over us.”
12/ Acts 5: 3 But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land?
Here we have Ananias and Sapphira. They were under the kingdom program as well, they sold a possession, but they kept back part of the price and brought a certain part of it, laid it at the apostle’s feet, and Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost and keep back part of the price of the land?
This was under the Kingdom program, for they were to sell everything and put it in a common pot. So under the Kingdom program there are commands concerning the Holy Spirit, and Israel violated them. They were blinded, they were set aside, they fell.
13/ I Thessalonians 5: 19 Quench not the Spirit.
Here we read about quenching the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit is given to us to minister to us, to teach us, to guide us, to direct us, to rebuke us. But we have the capacity to quench or stifle the Spirit. What is it that quenches the Spirit? IT IS JUST SAYING ‘NO’ TO GOD. We should always be saying, “Yes, LORD.”
14/ As I was reading about quenching and about grieving the Holy Spirit, I thought about the Book of Hosea, chapters 4 & 5. This is a remarkable Scripture of God’s people, Israel, sinning against the Lord. At the first sign of their sin He rebuked them.
Hosea 5: 12 Therefore will I be unto Ephraim as a moth, and to the house of Judah as rottenness.
I will be to Ephraim like a moth, fluttering about in agitation, finally saying, Come back, come back, my people. But then God says, when His people are determined to be sinful, they become deaf to His pleadings.
Hosea 5: 14 I will be to Ephraim like a lion, roaring against their sin.
This is a stronger warning of the hideous development of sin. But they still do not listen. So finally God says, in Hosea 5: 15 I will go and return to my place until they acknowledge their offense and seek My face.
This is the silence of God that can be so terribly vocal.
15/ Hosea 4: 17 Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone.
One of the most terrible verses in the Bible is found here. Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone.
This is what might happen when we quench the Spirit. He remains within us, of course, but He takes a back seat. So God says, this is what you want, O, Christian, so be it—I will take My hands off until you seek my control again. A sad condition, quenching the Spirit.
16/ So the principal we must see at this point is, Galatians 5: 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
The Holy Spirit is to be the source of joy in the believer’s life, and when He is grieved, when He is quenched, He cannot do His office work, and the believer has sadness and distress.
17/ Now let us notice, what grieves the Holy Spirit. It happens to be the sins that are mentioned starting with Ephesians 4: 25 Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.
Here He tells us we are to put away lying. Lying grieves the Holy Spirit. The word, lying, here in the Greek, is a word that simply means FALSE. We are to put away everything that is false. That means, PRETENSE, and SHAM. WE MUST NEVER SPEAK ANYTHING WHICH IS SHAM OR FALSEHOOD, OR PRETENSE. Just the same we are not to live a lie, a falsehood, we are not to live in pretense or sham.
18/ John 8: 25 Then said they unto him, Who art thou? And Jesus saith unto them, Even the same that I said unto you from the beginning.
And here they came to Jesus Christ and said, Who art thou? And Christ Jesus said to them, even the same that I said unto you from the beginning. The exact rendering should be, ALTOGETHER WHAT I SAID UNTO YOU. What a tremendous statement. There is nothing covered, there is nothing hidden, no sham no pretense. He didn’t cover up. And this is what we are to be. We are never to be false. We are to put away from us everything that is false, with our lips, with our manner of life.
19/ Then notice the motive that is given, for we are members one of another. He is speaking here of especially our relationship to other believers. He is actually saying, Why would you ever attempt to deceive another believer? Why would you ever try to default another child of God? Why should you ever pretend to be something else in front of another believer.
20/ Ephesians 4: 26 Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:
This is a portion of Scripture that perplexes many people. There is such a thing as righteous indignation, righteous resentment.
Verse 26 might be translated IF YOU DO GET ANGRY YOU MUST NOT SIN IN YOUR ANGER.
20/ So this tells us that one can be angry and not be in sin. Our Lord was angry at different times, and of course, it was always apart from sinning—He couldn’t sin.
Mark 3: 5 And he was angry being grieved for the hardness of their hearts.
21/ Paul got angry, there can be no doubt about it.
Acts 15: 1, 2 And certain men which came down from Judaea taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved. When therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question.
Here the Scripture says, no small dissension. In other words, a real rip-snorting fight took place, a real argument here. Frankly, I am in the same boat with Paul—I can never be at peace with those preachers who are leading souls to hell with by denying the Grace of God in Jesus Christ.
22/ Ephesians 4: 28 Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.
Now Paul talks about the matter of stealing. One wonders what the Spirit of God would say about the stealing that goes on in our day. Take our politicians, how it distresses us, for I believe we have the most corrupt government we have ever had, but never forget, when you steal another person’s good name, you are stealing in the same way.
23/ Then there is another exhortation, Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let hm work with his hands, the thing that is good that he might give to him that needeth. Here we see the difference between law and grace. The law says we must not steal. But I want to show you that grace is far greater than the law. It brings a far greater exacting work upon the child of God. I believe it was easier to live under the law than it is under grace. What does grace say—Grace adds something when it says not to steal. Grace has a much higher standard than under the law. You can keep the law by refraining from taking something that is not yours, but grace says, not only are you not to steal, but you are to labor, working with your hands so that you can give to him that needeth.
24/ Ephesians 4: 29 Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.
Unholy speech is dealt with next, for it grieves the Holy Spirit. Worthless thoughts are never to be expressed. We need to pray with David, Psalm 141: 3 Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth, keep the door of my lips.
The wise man makes God the doorkeeper of his lips. What terrible things our tongues can do.
Proverbs 4: 24 Put away from thee a froward mouth, and perverse lips put far from thee.
25/ Proverbs 17: 27 He that hath knowledge spareth his words: and a man of understanding is of an excellent spirit.
This gives us some instruction about the corrupt communications coming out of our mouths. It says, He that has knowledge spareth his words—those who would talk for the Lord Jesus Christ will always learn that they talk too much. All of us say too much, and I am sure you will agree this is true. But he that hath knowledge spareth his words.
26/ Proverbs 26: 20 Where no wood is, there the fire goeth out: so where there is no talebearer, the strife ceaseth.
Here we read, Where no wood is, there the fire goeth out, but where there is no tale-bearer, the strife ceaseth.
Here is another word of warning about our speech. You know why trouble doesn’t stop? Because folks keep on talking. That is all there is to it. They keep the fire burning by constantly putting fuel upon it. The fire will go out if you don’t put fuel upon it. But the trouble is, people don’t want the fire to go out. Someone will say, Did you hear this, or did you hear that? And all the time they are adding fuel to the fire.
27/ Matthew 12: 34 O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.
Here we read, Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh—you say that which you have been thinking. If you’ve been thinking that which is unprofitable, that which is corrupt, you can’t help but speak of it, if it has been in your mind.
Philippians 4: 8 Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
AMEN
Ref: 09/17/1978 / 444-1 WHAT GRIEVES THE HOLY SPIRIT? / 01/26/2021
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